truancy in the news

Up to 15 Percent of Students Chronically Skip School, Johns Hopkins Finds - NYTimes.com: "“We don’t see the problem clearly because, in most places, we don’t measure it, and average daily attendance really skews the way we view this,” said one of the authors, Robert Balfanz, a research professor at the university’s School of Education."

They argue that policy makers tend to look at absenteeism in the wrong way, requiring districts and states to measure average daily attendance rates, but — with the exception of a few states — not focusing on the relatively small number of students who account for most absences. They found that some schools report an average of more than 90 percent daily attendance, masking the fact that 40 percent of their students are chronically missing.         via Blog this'

[UPDATE: charge dropped after outcry]
Honor student placed in jail for tardiness and truancy at school | khou.com Houston: "Tran said she works a full-time job, a part-time job and takes advanced placement and dual credit college level courses. She said she is often too exhausted to wake up in time for school. Sometimes she misses the entire day, she said. Sometimes she arrives after attendance has been taken.

The judge ordered Tran to spend 24 hours in jail and pay a $100 fine. Judge Moriarty admitted that he wants to make an example of Tran.

“If you let one (truant student) run loose, what are you gonna’ do with the rest of ‘em? Let them go too?” Judge Moriarty asked."

Ky. near top in jailed kids for status offenses - Bowling Green Daily News: Local News: "Children were put into Kentucky jails more than 1,330 times last year for running away, skipping school, buying tobacco products and other offenses.

Kentucky has one of the highest rates in the nation of incarcerating kids for status offenses – actions that are crimes for children but not for adults. It’s a situation that harms children, negatively affects communities and costs taxpayers, according to a new study by Kentucky Youth Advocates.

“If a status offender is put into the same cell as a violent offender, there’s no one that thinks that status offender is going to turn the violent offender into a better-behaved kid,” said Terry Brooks, executive director of Kentucky Youth Advocates. “Instead, what happens is the status offender gets enrolled in a criminal school.”

Status offenders accounted for 17 percent of youth incarcerations in Kentucky last year. That means one out of every six times, a child was put in jail for something that wouldn’t be a crime for an adult, according to Kentucky Youth Advocates."

Release: United States Continuing to Overspend on Police, Despite Decreasing Crime Rates — Justice Policy Institute: "WASHINGTON, DC – Despite crime rates being at their lowest levels in more than 30 years, the U.S. continues to maintain large and increasingly militarized police units, spending more than $100 billion every year, according to a report released today by the Justice Policy Institute. Police forces have grown from locally-funded public safety initiatives into a federally subsidized jobs program, with a decreasing focus on community policing and growing concerns about racial profiling and “cuffs for cash,” with success measured not by increased safety and well-being but by more arrests."BBC News - Giants of French history: Jules Ferry and Marie Curie: "But it was in 1879 that he became part of the republican government of Jules Grevy, creating public primary schools and training secular teachers for them. In 1881, education became free and, the following year, secular and compulsory for children, both girls and boys, aged 6 to 13."